Announcer the following program is paid for by the friends and partners of joyce meyer ministries. But, i tell ya what, i am not gonna let the devil steal the plan of god for my life through having a loose mouth and saying stupid stuff that doesnt agree with gods word. [music] joyce i have a grandson thats a little over 3 and, he had gotten a hold of a bunch of pictures of me from a photo session i had done. And so he put stickers on the pictures for me. And i know you cant see this but youre gonna get the point. When he brought it to my house to surprise me, every sticker was over my mouth. [laughing] joyce i mean, every picture, the stickers over my mouth. I thought, well, god, are you trying to tell me something . [laughing] joyce this is an area where we will always be growing our whole life. It amazes me the number of years that i sat in church and never heard anything about the power of my words. Maybe youve heard teaching like this before. It doesnt matter to me if youve heard it a hundred times. You need to hear it again because theres no area thats harder to control than our mouth. No man can tame the tongue, the bible says. You say, well, then if i cant tame my tongue, whats the point in teaching me to . Well, heres the thing, if you want to, if you really want to do whats right and you use your mouth for a godly purpose and if youll pray about it and if you will study in this area, god will do the work that needs to be done. But dont think that you can just make a decision to go home and shut up and everything is gonna change because i went through that over and over and i actually got worse instead of better. We cannot change by works of the flesh. We can only change when we let the holy spirit work in our life to bring the changes that need to be brought. You and god are partners and you cannot do it without him. Gods not gonna let us have victories without him, because if we try to, then were gonna take the credit. Tonight in particular, i want to talk to you about words and how they affect the anointing on your life or how they affect the power and the presence of god on your life. The anointing, acts 1 8. How many of you want to carry a strong presence of god on your life . [applauding] joyce acts 1 8. But you shall receive power ability, efficiency, and might when the holy spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses, an enabling power comes to be a witness, in jerusalem, judea, samaria and to the ends of the earth. When you receive the power of the holy spirit, the presence of the holy spirit in your life, you receive ability, efficiency and might. You know what that means if i can put it another way . That means that you can actually come to the point where you can do the things that you need to do with, what i like to call, a holy ease. Without the anointing, everything is hard, hard, hard and double hard. And i do not believe for 1 second that jesus went through what he went through, paid the price that he paid for us so we could all go around and live lives that are nothing but hard, hard, hard. Life is so hard. Things are so hard. It is so hard. Well, in the first place, we need to stop saying that. And we need to learn how to do things more in the presence of the holy spirit. You have to learn the difference between doing something thats a work of your flesh and doing something that god has actually anointed you to do. Amen . Now im gonna ask dave to come up and hes gonna share a Little Something that i think will help you. And while hes on his way, let me say that people ask often how dave handles me being the one up front and him sitting down there. Well, there was a time when dave tried to teach and i tried to shut up. [laughing] joyce and i was not anointed to shut up and he was not anointed to teach. [laughing] joyce and so i asked him if he would come tonight and share with you kind of the process that he went through with this thing about what im doing and, you know, how it affected him and dave well, first of all, how many of you have tried to operate in somebody elses gift . Never works, does it . All it does is frustrate you because god designed you to operate in your gift. When god gave joyce the gift to teach, i was kind of upset about it because i thought, why did he give it to her and not to me . And after about 2 weeks, i realizedafter about 2 weeks of being miserable, i realized that, you know, god is the one that designs and puts the gifts in us. And he never puts a bad gift in anybody. Everybody has a special gift designed for them and that gift, if we allow it to operate, we reap the benefit of that gift. And if we do not, we sacrifice, we waste the grace for that gift to operate and we sacrifice the peace and the joy that is ours in operating in the gift that god has put in us. And many, many, christians throughout this country and throughout the world are sacrificing the peace and the joy that god wants them to have because theyre not operating in the gift that he has placed in them. And its just its a miserable place to be. Its a horrible position to be in. And i believe that every person wants to operate or wants the blessing of god, but they see something in somebody else and they want what god has not designed them to be, and itsall it does is make them miserable and keep them miserable. So my advice to you is embrace the gift that god has given you. Dont throw it away. Embrace that gift and if you do, youll have both the peace and the joy and gods grace will operate in you to function in what he designed you to operate in. Joyce tell them about being anointed to listen. Dave hmm . Joyce tell them about being anointed to listen, a little coaching. Dave she always says, i dont know how you can sit down there and listen to me over and over again. And basically, ive probably listened to thousands of messages, but god has placed an anointing to me to listen to those messages and i just enjoy them. Every message to me is [applauding] dave just, there are no messages, even though ive heard them over and over again, theyre never the same and never boring. Theyre always alive and i always enjoy them and i always, you know, get a lot out of them so. [applauding] joyce thank you. You can take that. I wanted you to hear that from dave for a couple of reasons. One, dave is one of the happiest people that ive ever known in my whole life. And those couple of weeks and, lord, i wish all of us could get it in 2 weeks, but you know he was only miserable 2 weeks and he got in line with god. Most of us have been miserable 20 years and were still trying to get in line with god. [laughing] joyce but at first, it really bothered him that god had given me this teaching gift and then god just showed him, ive anointed her to do that. But ive given you gifts also and your gifts are also important. And if you function in your gift, now listen to this, if you function in your gift, you will always have peace and joy. But if you try to function in somebody elses gift, then youre not gonna have peace and joy. You cannot do peacefully what god has not anointed you to do. Do you hear me . You cannot do peacefully what god has not anointed you to do. So stop trying to impress people and just learn how to know what god wants and do it and enjoy it. What i do is not hard for me. Its a lot of hard work, but its not hard for me to do it because im anointed to do it. And whatever youre doing should not be hard for you if youre doing what god wants you to do. Surely you dont believe that god has given you something to spend your life doing that you hate and despise and youre miserable at. [applauding] joyce man, theres some wheels turning out there cause youre thinking, well, i hate my job. [laughing] joyce well, there can be a lot of reasons for that. Maybe you just need to come back for my series on attitudes, i dont know, but, you know [laughing] joyce we should not be miserable all the time at what were doing. God will anoint you, that means he will enable you to parent with wisdom and ease. He will anoint you to be a good wife, a good husband. He will anoint you to be a good friend. God will anoint you in business, if thats what hes called you to do. Dont try to live on the other side of your gifting and your anointing because if you do, youre gonna do nothing but struggle. And when god has anointed you to do something, you need to see that as a precious gift from god. You take like the songs that matt redman writes and the ease with which he sings. Leading worship just looks like the easiest thing in the world for him. And you know what . It probably is because hes anointed to do it. Well, now if you want to see me break out in a sweat, that would be the wrong place to put me. Amen . But i tried to learn how to play guitar and i tried to sing because i knew a lot of preachers that could also sing and i wanted to not just preach, i wanted to sing. [laughing] joyce and i tried to learn how to play guitar and my fingers were too short, number one. Number two, i almost failed music. And number three, whatever key i sing in, nobody knows what it is. [laughing] joyce but let me tell ya something, i sure can talk. I am anointed to talk. [cheering] joyce the anointing on your life is so precious. 1 john 2 27, but as for you, the anointing the sacred appointment, the unction i love that word unction. Thats kind of like holy ghost umph, like. Got it. Unction. Which you have received from him abides [permanently] in you. So that anointing that god gives us, it abides permanently in us. But if we want it to be released through us and if we want to benefit from it, then we need to cooperate with the holy spirits plan for our life. Every day you should say, god is working in my life and something good is gonna happen to me. And i can do whatever i need to do through christ who strengthens me. I love my life. I used to wake up every day and think, i hate my life. Now i wake up and i say on purpose, i love my life. I love the life that god has given me. You have that anointing. And you have no need that anyone should instruct you. And that doesnt mean you dont need the gift of teaching. It means, and i love this, that when you have that anointing of the holy spirit on your life, that anointing will lead you and show you what youre to do in situations. You can sense when youre saying something you shouldnt be saying. Youll sense a little withdrawal of that presence of god and thats a sign. Uhoh, i shouldnt be saying that, shouldnt be doing that. You know, need to back up here. Go forward, its okay. I can sense that when im preaching. I know when im going in a direction thats not hitting into what people need and i can change. God will lead you. You can know the timing to talk to your children. You can know the timing to talk to your spouse about whats gonna be a sticky issue. You can know the right time to ask for a raise at work and the wrong time to ask for a raise at work. But if we do everything in our timing, say what we want to when we want to, all were gonna do is make a big mess. Let the anointing teach you. I can tell, this is like a new gate for some you. Youre kind of like, hmm . See, when youre anointed for something then you dont feel like theres a big struggle with it. Theres a flow. Theres a certain amount of holy ease. And that dont mean everything in life is easy. Like i said, what i do is a lot of hard work, but the doing of it is not hard. Its not hard for me to stand up and preach to people. Doesnt matter to me if theres 3 out there or 3 million. I dont have the fear because the presence of god is on me to do this. I know that its a gift from god to do this. And many of you have gifts. You know that you have gifts. You have abilities and theres things that you can do, but youre never gonna fully give yourself to what you can do if you dont stop comparing yourself with other people and wanting to do what they do. [applauding] joyce well, all i can do is cook. All i can do is this and all i can do is that. And i wish i could sing and i wish i had a Ministry Like sister joyce. Well, you know what . If i gave this thing to you right now, it could kill you in 2 short weeks if you werent anointed for it. I mean, can you imagine the pressure and the agony that some people are under because theyre always trying to do something that theyre not supposed to be doing . Whoo, i love freedom. [applauding] joyce i love freedom. Im free to do what im anointed to do, but im free to say no if im not anointed to do it. So this anointing teaches you concerning everything and it abides in you. It will never depart from you. The presence of god will never leave us, but we dont want to hinder it. Now, lets look at ephesians 4. Yall doing okay out there . Audience yeah. Joyce now, i pray for you that you will become much more sensitive to whats coming out of your mouth. And if you get convicted a thousand times a day, i prayog you and keep convicting you until you let him change you. Okay now these scriptures are just, wow, wow, wow, wow scriptures. The holy spirit is sensitive, do you know that . Hes depicted as a dove, the gentlest bird that exists, and we are anointed with that gentle dove. Tender, gentle, sensitive. The bible says in ephesians 4 30, and do not grieve the holy spirit of god do not grieve the spirit of god [do not offend or vex or sadden him], by whom you were sealed marked, branded as gods own now, in order for us to understand what grieves the holy spirit, we have to read the scriptures around this. Verse 29, let no foul or polluting language, nor evil word nor unwholesome or worthless talk [ever] come out of your mouth, but only such [speech] as is good and beneficial to the spiritual progress of others, as is fitting to the need and the occasion, that it may be a blessing and give grace gods favor to those who hear it. And do not grieve the holy spirit. Verse 31, and let all bitterness and indignation and wrath passion, rage, bad temper and resentment anger, animosity , quarreling, brawling, clamor, contention , slander evilspeaking, abusive or blasphemous language be banished from you, with all malice spite, ill will, or baseness of any kind . Wow. I couldnt even tell you how many hours ive stared at these scriptures because i tell ya, i do not want to offend, vex or sadden the holy spirit. I dont want to do any damage to the anointing on my life. I dont want to do anything that would offend the holy spirit. You know what . I think sometimes we need we talk a lot about freedom and im big on being free. But you know what . I think we also need to sometimes live a little more carefully. [applauding] joyce sometimes we can get so free that we just think that nothing matters, but there are things that matter to god. You can change things in your life dramatically by just getting with god on a regular basis and asking him to help you with what you say. What do you talk about at the lunch table . What do you talk about with your friends . How do you talk about people . How do you talk about your boss at work . How do you talk about your life . How do you talk about yourself . What kind of things are you saying about your future . What kind of things are you saying about your past . A couple had pigeons on their window ledge, but they kept noticing one dove was there. And then they began to notice that when they argued or slammed the door, the dove wound fly away, but the pigeons always remained. So my question to you tonight is do you have pigeon religion . [laughing] joyce can the dove live at your house . Or is there too much arguing and bickering and banging and slamming going on . Come on. Man, you guys are quiet. Whoo. [laughing] joyce the holy spirit is your unseen guest there all the time. He lives in you. Hes promised to never leave you nor forsake you. We dont want to offend the holy spirit. Dont have pigeon religion. Make the dove comfortable all the time. In the book of acts, the early christians were told to go wait in an upper room until the spirit, or the promise of the father, would come from on high. And they waited, they waited for this special outpouring of the spirit that jesus said he would send. And in acts 2 it says, and when the time had fully come, suddenly like a mighty wind, the spirit came into the room and tongues of fire settled on each of them and they all began to speak in other languages. Now im not gonna not give a long dissertation on the doctrine of speaking in tongues, but i do want to say that its very interesting to me that the first area that the holy spirit touched [applauding] joyce and i know a lot of you dont understand the whole thing about speaking in tongues and some of you do and some of you dont. But its very interesting that god gives that spiritual language so we can speak to the holy spirit in that spiritual language and go beyond our own mind and our own understanding. Let me tell ya something. Whatever your doctrine is about speaking in tongues, i just lovingly encourage you to study the bible and see what it says. Doesnt matter to me whether you do or whether you dont. You dont have to speak in tongues to go to heaven. I love you if you do and i hopelove you if you dont and i hope you love me if i do cause i do, so [applauding] joyce but i still think that theres a point to be made that when the holy spirit came with power, and when the holy ghost has come upon you, you shall receive power, ability, efficiency and might. And on the day of pentecost, suddenly a mighty wind and tongues of fire settled on each of them and they all began to speak in languages that they did not understand. Why was the first place that the holy spirit touched, their tongue . Because he had a great thing that he was beginning in the earth. The birth of the church, a handful of ragtag people and through those people and the anointing that god gave them, fishermen and tax collectors and people that werentwere not educated, ex prostitutes and all kinds of people that the world would have thrown away as trash. When the anointing of god comes on a person, it turns them into another man or another woman. [applauding] joyce and through that little band of ragtag ordinary people, the name of jesus is famous now worldwide and there are millions of believers all over the world. And the more the devil tries to put the fire out, the more the church grows. [applauding] joyce god had to shut zachariahs mouth to get what he wanted with him. And when he was trying to birth the church, he had to touch their mouths with his fire. Youre gonna see tomorrow that before god could use isaiah, he had to touch his lips with burning coals from off the altar and cleanse his mouth. And i love what isaiah says in isaiah 6, he came into the presence of god and the glory filled the temple. And the first thing he said is woe is me for i am ruined and undone for i am a man of unclean lips, and i dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. When he came into the presence of god, the first thing he realized about himself, the first sin he realized was the words of his mouth. We should not praise god with one breath and curse men with the other. [applauding] joyce we have to get that kind of mixture out of our lives and we cannot do it without a lot of help from god. Theres no point in you going home and just saying, well, thats it. Bless god. Im gonna shut my mouth. [laughing] joyce no, what you want to do is go home and say, man, god, we got a lot of work to do. [applauding] joyce and im gonna tell you something, this is just not something you learn once and then hooptydo, youve got it and you do on about your business. I spent about a year and a half, not this year, but the year before and half of the year before that, studying the power of words. But i tell ya what, i am not go